January 30, 2014. Over a decade ago now. I sat down and wrote up a blog on my personal Giant Bomb account about Half-Life 3 and why, after seven years of waiting, I was still excited. Now, 17 years after the launch of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and five years after Half-Life Alyx, I find myself still waiting for Valve to announce Half-Life 3. And while some might not care anymore or may even find it all tiring, I’m still excited, damn it.
For the last few weeks, hype has been building around Half-Life 3, despite Valve never announcing or even teasing it. Doesn’t matter. Since late 2021, something has been building in the community. Dataminers have continued to extract and share pieces of code from other Valve games that seem to indicate that the company is working on a new Half-Life game, reportedly codenamed HLX. Then, earlier this month, Valve announced three (lol) new pieces of gaming hardware, but didn’t announce a new game to go with any of it. That struck some as odd and got many wondering if that datamined Half-Life project was set to be a Steam Machine launch game in 2026.
Sprinkle on to this situation some insiders teasing another big reveal, extra security being spotted at Valve during the hands-on with the new hardware, and what appears to be a new Valve game waiting to be revealed on Steam, and you end up with what we have now: A lot of people freaking out about Half-Life 3 possibly being announced very soon. And you know what? I’m one of those people, and I think more people should be hyped.
Why you should care about Half-Life 3
Half-Life 2: Episode 2′s ending was an infamous cliffhanger that killed off a major character and raised the stakes in a big way. And for 13 years, that cliffhanger remained unchanged and had many Half-Life fans like me desperate to find out what happens next. We finally found out in Half-Life: Alyx, which is a VR prequel whose ending makes a big change to the cliffhanger, undoing that shocking death and replacing it with a mysterious new situation, one which only Gordon Freeman seems capable of solving. Five years later I’m still waiting, and I’m still super excited to see what happens next.
The thought of Gordon Freeman and his iconic crowbar going after the G-Man and possibly wrapping up the storyline that started in Half-Life back in 1998 is a tantalizing one. This is a world and narrative I’ve thought about a lot for…well, most of my life. And the idea that it might finally be wrapping up in the near(ish) future has me bouncing off the walls. But maybe you don’t care about the world of Half-Life. That’s fair. There’s still plenty of reason to be excited to see what Valve does next.
I’m really fascinated to see the next big video game from Valve. This is a studio with a nearly flawless track record that prides itself on creating incredible experiences that push technology and game design forward. And Half-Life is the studio’s flagship franchise. The thing that made everything else possible. So it makes sense that a lot of money, care, and time are being put into making HLX, or Half-Life 3, something very special.
HLX also, based on datamined leaks, will be the studio’s first non-VR, full-length single-player video game release since 2011’s Portal 2. Valve just hasn’t made a game like this in a long, long time, and that alone has me intrigued.
What does a big AAA Half-Life sequel look like in 2025 or, more likely, 2026? Valve often uses the Half-Life franchise to push game technology forward while trying out new ideas like VR, HDR, advanced physics, and the gravity gun. What will be the cool new “thing” in Half-Life 3? Data mining points to some impressive-sounding simulation tech that can accurately recreate how wet an object is or how flammable a surface might be, which could lead to some wild puzzles. Or maybe it will make combat more dynamic?
Until whatever game using this tech is actually released, we won’t know for sure how it will be used, but I have to imagine that the next Half-Life game from Valve won’t just be six or seven levels that play mostly like Half-Life 2 but with a shiny coat of paint slapped on top. Valve isn’t that kind of studio. That’s now how they make games. And that has me really excited to see what the team has been cooking up for the last five years or so.
A big game not burdened by stockholders or trends
Another big reason to be excited: Unlike most other game studios and publishers, Valve answers to nobody. It has all the money it needs and can make whatever it wants, essentially. So Half-Life 3 won’t need to include microtransactions, AI generation tools, battle passes, cosmetic stores, free-to-play elements, crossover content, ads, or anything else that most players find annoying. Half-Life 3 doesn’t have to chase trends. Half-Life 3 doesn’t have to be an extraction shooter because the publisher demands it. Instead, Valve can spend many years and a shit-ton of money building something it wants to make, and that sounds very refreshing.
In a time when every game seems to be from one of three genres or is a remake, Valve’s next Half-Life sequel could be something very different. It could be a AAA, modern single-player action-shooter developed by one of the best studios around, with no strings attached and powered by advanced simulation tech. Yes please!
While I’m fairly confident that Valve is working on a Half-Life game that might end up being Half-Life 3—there’s just too much damn data out there to say otherwise—there’s no guarantee it will see the light of day anytime soon, or ever. Valve is a weird company that isn’t publicly traded and, as mentioned, has an infinite money machine called Steam funding its activities. It has no financial reason to release something unless it wants to, and it can take as long as it wants to make anything.
So maybe Half-Life 3 gets announced tomorrow. Maybe in 2026. Maybe years from now. Regardless, I’m still excited, and I think anyone who cares about games should be, too.
